Seraphina looked at me.
Scared now, aren't you?
You've always been terrified of these cold, wet creatures.
All you have to do is grab my sleeve and beg me to save you, and I'll pull you out.
She stood at the edge of the pit, waiting for me to throw myself at her.
I wiped the blood off, braced myself against a rusted support beam, and straightened up. Then I walked to the edge.
"Thank you, Donna."
I jumped.
The air tore past my ears. In that brief fall, I heard her breathing stutter out of rhythm.
Countdown: 4 days.
The Serpent Abyss was pitch black.
The sub-basement ran three levels beneath the Falcone compound, a flooded drainage network from the original foundation that had been left to rot for decades. Water pooled ankle-deep in places. Rats moved in the walls. But the rats weren't what made the Abyss a punishment. It was the snakes. Copperheads and water moccasins that had colonized the tunnels over generations, breeding in the dark until the lowest level was more nest than corridor. The Donna kept it that way on purpose.
They crawled over my body. Fangs sank into flesh. The stench of venom and rot filled everything.
I dragged myself through the mire.
Five years ago, I'd stayed down here for half a month to protect Seraphina during a turf war, clearing the tunnels level by level so she could use them as an escape route, killing wave after wave of serpents until the swarm finally retreated.
Now it was just me.
Three days and three nights, and I didn't make a sound. Whenever I couldn't bear it anymore, I stared at the panel.
Almost over.
I clawed my way to the top of the pit at dawn.
Dried blood crusted every inch of me. The rags of my clothes hung in strips, and the wounds had turned black at the edges.
Seraphina and Gabriel were standing at the rim.
Gabriel shrieked and scrambled behind her. He laughed, a beat too late, trying to make it sound like disgust rather than fear. No one was fooled.
Seraphina went rigid. She took half a step forward, her hand rising before it fell back to her side.
She signaled the guards to clear the corridor and drifted further away, as though avoiding something filthy.
"You've dirtied the ground."
Her voice was raw. "Hand the venom sac to Gabriel for his training, then get yourself cleaned up."
I opened my hand. The serpent king's venom sac sat in my palm. In the syndicate's world, the extract was worth more than most men earned in a year. A concentrated toxin that, properly refined, became a leverage tool no rival family could trace.
Gabriel approached with a silk handkerchief, using it as a barrier between his fingers and mine as he reached for the sac.
The instant he took it, his foot slipped. The thick sole of his handmade Italian shoe came down on my right hand.
My index finger had already been half-bitten off in the Abyss. Now it separated completely.
Cold sweat soaked through my back.
I pressed my lips together, pulled my hand back, and didn't make a sound.
Seraphina stared at the severed finger. Her own fingers trembled, just once. Her left hand drifted to her wrist, rotating slowly, adjusting a bracelet that was no longer there.
She turned and walked away.
Her thoughts spilled over each other in a tangle:
Why didn't he cry out?
He used to come running to me over a scratch, begging me to take care of it for ages.
Does he... not care about me anymore?
No. He's just being stubborn. Trying to punish me.
I watched her retreating figure.
Who cares.
Countdown: 2 days.
The servants' quarters held nothing but straw.
I leaned against the corner and pulled out a bundle of yellowed letters tied with kitchen twine.
They were the only thing my parents had left behind.
The year the blood debt came due, they'd sent me to the compound and pressed these letters into my hands.
I smoothed the creased paper with my sleeve.
Two more days.
I thought about home. Warm milk, flowers on the balcony, Mom and Dad nagging me about nothing.
The light dimmed.
Seraphina stood a few paces away.
Her hand flicked out. The letters ripped free and landed in her palm.
"Give them back!"
I lunged for them.
Seraphina raised her arm high, turning the bundle over between her fingers as she examined it.
"So this is why your focus has been slipping." Her voice was dangerously low. "Omertà demands total loyalty to the family, and you've been clinging to these things."
I grabbed her sleeve, stretching for them.
"Please. Don't touch them."
The moment that word left my mouth, her grip tightened. Her left wrist rotated, slow, deliberate, the phantom bracelet turning beneath skin that remembered its weight.
That familiar voice slithered into my ears:
He's finally begging.
Destroy what he cares about, and he'll break.
Civilian garbage. Why keep it? From now on, your world will have only me.
Seraphina looked at me. Her lighter appeared in her free hand, the flame steady.
"Too late."
A sharp hiss.
The letters caught and curled, blackening in her palm, crumbling to fine ash.
She opened her hand. Grey dust drifted down over my face.
Cold. Bone-deep cold.
I didn't move. My arm stayed outstretched, reaching for something that no longer existed. The ash settled into my eyes. It stung.
I lowered my hand, sat back down in the straw, and closed my eyes.
